Bill Viola Movies

Martyrs (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) consists of four plasma screens, each showing a single figure who is progressively overwhelmed by the onslaught of...

Déserts was created to accompany a live performance of the work of avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse (1885-1965). The Ensemble Modern,...

The title of Truth Through Mass Individuation references Carl Jung. An isolated figure is seen performing successively more aggressive actions...

Writes Viola: "Sodium Vapor was recorded over a period of several weeks in the hours between one and five in the morning on the streets of an...

Anima, which means “soul” in Latin and is the root of the word animation, is from a series of works inspired by Renaissance paintings of...

Video/sound installation featuring two channels of color video projections from opposite walls of a large, darkened gallery; custom video switching...

Inspired by a painting of the Visitation (1528-29) by the Italian artist Pontormo, The Greeting is a video image sequence involving the interactions...

A series of shots depicting "America" are laid over a classic Gregorian Chant recreated through the distortion of a woman's screams.

A man sinks down rapidly into the watery depths, but his inevitable and extended ascension's entire sequence, which was only a few seconds in real...

Ancient of Days is a remarkable series of "canons and fugues for video" that comprises Viola's most sophisticated structural and metaphorical...

“Transfiguration refers to a rare process whereby both the substance and essence of an entity is reconfigured. In physical terms, a...

Two figures are captured in slow motion, walking closely together, across a stretch of the Mojave Desert towards the camera, with no end in sight.

With a title referring to Japanese folklore, wherein things done on the first day of a new year are significant, the film - an ardent dream entirely...

The rituals and philosophies of indigenous non-Western cultures recur throughout Viola's work. In 1976, he travelled to the Solomon Islands with...

The three panels of Bill Viola’s triptych show video footage of birth (on the left), death (on the right) and a metaphorical journey between...

A four-hour plus video production inspired by Richard Wagner's oeuvre "Tristan und Isolde" and projected during the opera premiere in Paris, in...

Installation on two screens where the two characters burst into tears, gradually lowering their heads until their faces touch the water.

Created by Bill Viola and Kira Perov and opened in May 2014, Martyrs shows four individuals, across four colour vertical plasma screens, being...

Migration is an analysis of an image, a metaphorical exercise in perception and representation, illusion and reality, microcosm and macrocosm, nature...

The ascent of the soul in the space after death as it is awakened and drawn up in a backwards flowing waterfall.